Hello expression Monkey’s. So I was going to start this thirty day challenge in May but when I get an idea I like to run with it. Let’s brake from convention and do a mid month challenge together. It is so important to stay connected as artist, especially in an extremely competitive and left brained environment. Our culture puts artist in a double bind; when we are small most of us are forced to participate in things like piano lessons or violin (for boys it’s sports) as a way to develop sophistication to get into a good college. When we grow up, the very thing we are pressured into doing becomes a liability (this goes for sports too) and we get judged and told that we aren’t living in the real world. It can be even worse amongst other artist who will parse out those of us who don’t measure up to certain standards such as making enough money or other random ways to makes us feel unworthy. It can take tremendous effort to block out the noise while also being open and sensitive enough to reflect “as twere the mirror up to nature”

This challenge will not have a specific theme and instead we will write 1-2 lines each day, adding to the lines we did the day before. Follow along and post your piece or wordpress link in the comments below, or just keep it in your personal journal. Good luck, have fun and remember DON’t Think.

Midnight sky holding the trees down in a blanket of yellow speckles. Oh that drinking cup.

Take me through the portal to the ancestors crouched into the woods toward the call of freedom

Avoid the fishers who poke in to gather information to structure your own noose.

The clouds keep the moon from pointing out our path and brings haze on our direction.

Oh beautiful and sacred bonds from sea to shining teeth

words committed to memory from the desk saluting the flag on automatic

A race war run by a menagerie of ethic cocktail hidden by wrapping paper over the bones

Oh say can you be removed from the dark or the light

melodies politely crooned to mommy and daddy in the auditorium

A perfect union experimenting with explosives because they can

God shed his gift for a small fee

lip synching lines that mean nothing to grades posted online

Bring us your tired and bored

mouthing off in detention to stand out as worth something

Purple mountains your majesty melted in the crayon box making gray

Physical creatures being pulled in multiple directions holding tightly to not be controlled; I ponder the concept of forgiveness.

Resentment plays a necessary part to keeping my heart safe and leaving all faces blurred by distance.

To bring them close is to get lost in an illusion masquerading as sister, brother, mother and father.

Forgiveness provides me a clever way to show the world how good I am, while rebelling against it in a form of hypocrisy of conditioned emotions.

Do I only forgive you when you forgive me and what is the proof that it is real. Judah or Jesus, each met with the same fate.

I surrender to all the labels and uniforms in which bubbling rage made fulfilled.

Ahead of the joke, thinking my clever act would bring my redemption.

Forgiveness testing my former self against my future self, not too sure of whose rules to follow so I forfeit the game.

The more I manipulate the narrative the longer egg dries upon my face.

Defining myself to the chapters of my own book and bisecting each precious now into two piles that linear life forces upon us all.

Complexity will not survive in the rat race and stilted postures don’t seem to fit.

Stronger now by allowing myself to be seen as curious eyes want to dress the shell.

Reacting never got me anywhere but I didn’t bother to tell my mouth.

This concept continues to show itself as multi dimensional underneath each repressed insight forming another body to prove it to.

Deep waters lie still as I let forgiveness define me and not the other way around, leaving the work to god.

Standing alone to sort it out without the suit of armor that cast shadows speckled with all my misdeeds.

Forgiving myself for trusting those who created the metal and bringing me back from the edge of distraction.

Brave soldiers walking the talk, having more energy than I and standing for all future me’s.

Stay strong.

Stay united even when folks like me rather write about it than be by your side.

I am weaker than my sermons would protest but you give my weary heart hope for change.

we hung up our hats while every eye and every arm links in solidarity to take back dignity.

The failure of my imagination pays lip service to the courage and strength in numbers on the street

Anytown america giving us reason to believe in a better day

One where men, woman and children can leave their house and be greeted by compassion

A place where a small misstep is met with a helping hand

a neihborhood that mothers don’t need to fret and every sound of the engine

A justice system in which dad’s don’t have to pray for a gaf or stutter to secure redemption

Brooklyn Center a snapshot of our shared darkness and collective light

I walk with you, if only in tepid words whispered to the gods.

a memory that flashes a bit of light to a simple thought of home

taking me out of the walls that locked me into bitter survival

grabbing sunshine from small stories of when I was good and life was easy

i gift the world with whatever form of crazy keeps my memory alive knowing nothing of my passage through time

giving up the sorrow to wipe it all clean and bury it deeper

my diary of dirty laundry kept to justify your escape to a quiet deserved

clouds up ahead letting forgiveness rise to all parts of this body

weeping willow take all confessions to back up this new season

a memory to remind the river that earth is an unconditional witness

putting regret to bed and taking punishment off the table of wild flowers

smelling the patient friends that bear no judgement and sprout perspective towards a new day

colors and senses replace feelings and nonsense from a past that no longer exists

a bud in the sky poking out its nose to tell me it shall all fade into memory.